45 thoughts on “And Now A Word From Our Sponsor!”

  1. At least we have Tony trying to get involved. All we get with Pete is his disdain for sportos.

  2. 1. From BJ6000:
    “It never made the blindest bit of sense to close it in the first place… but now I’m beginning to see the objective. It was Batiuk’s way of trimming the cast. He closed Montoni’s, so he could re-open it with only the characters he wanted.”
    That sounds so spot on. He pulled out his scissors and culled the herd. (A cattle reference just for CBH!) it shows more creative planning than I thought TB was capable. You would never think it possible after seeing which characters he reveres. Being familiar with the greats like Breathed, Schultz, Watterson, and Amend, I am surprised that these are the characters that TB wants his last years to be known for.
    BJ6000, you also mentioned the decorations. I guess he made that easy for Davis to create the few strips that have Montoni’s interior. Although I do not remember cherry pie on the previous menu. Montoni’s is modeled after a real place, do they serve cherry pie?
    2. Be Ware of Eve Hill,
    “Starbuck Jones story arcs, as welcome and dreaded as much as a colonoscopy.”
    Having had 3 or 4 colonoscopies, (After so many, one loses count, but the thrill is still there. I did dream during the last one!) I would never pick Starbucks Jones.
    3. ComicBookHarriet,
    The most important part of bottle feeding a calf:
    Put the nipple on the open end of the bottle. After 19 failures, I learned my lesson. I am teachable.

    1. Re BJ6000’s comment: I don’t know if these are the characters Tom necessarily wants to be remembered for; I think he assumes (and he’s likely to be right) that he will be always be remembered as the guy who killed off St. Lisa. I think the characters he’s preserved are his personal fantasy characters, the ones he can have live out his dreams of being a highly respected author (vs. the creator of a middle-of-the-pack comic strip) and receiving the adulation he believes he so deserves.

      1. Hannibal’s Lectern,
        I wonder how much TB will be remembered? If it is for dead St. Lisa, Marvel and DC stole all of his thunder. I would be hard pressed to name any superhero more well known than DSL who hasn’t already died, either in comics or film. Most of them were resurrected. Perhaps that is TB’s final gift to America: the Return of Dead St. Lisa.
        The sad part is that Kent State will probably be the only entity that puts up a shrine to TB. I am guessing that most people under 40 years old (like you!) would be unable to name the giants of the industry, such as Schultz or Breathed. I think most could identify the characters but not the authors. I am guessing you couldn’t find 10 people in a crowd that could identify FW or TB. CBH is probably the biggest buyer of FW books in the last 2 years. (Be Ware of Eve Hill should run a fund raiser for CBH. Those books ain’t cheap!)

        1. I would be hard pressed to name any superhero more well known than DSL who hasn’t already died, either in comics or film. Most of them were resurrected.

          Maybe that’s where Batiuk will be unique: that the entire FunCrankyVerse will come to its end and both Lisa and Bull will still be dead. I remember the comic world getting to the point where the latest “death of Superhero-man” was greeted only with speculation about how they would bring him back this time. If DSL and BB actually stay dead, it might be a comics industry first. I seem to recall that Berke Breathed more or less killed off Opus at one point and he then reappeared, but I have to admit I’m not as current as I should be on Bloom County and its reincarnations (I have come to suspect that Breathed only revives the strip because he has come up with a new way to end it), because I’m no longer sure where or even if it’s being published (for a time it was on Facebook then it was on GoComics, but then it seemed to stop updating anywhere, including Breathed’s own website, and that’s when I kinda gave up).

          I am guessing that most people under 40 years old (like you!) would be unable to name the giants of the industry, such as Schultz or Breathed.

          Under 40? Maybe on Mars, where I see I would be 37 and a quarter years old. Here on earth I’m an elderly 70 and loose change. I got to read a lot of Peanuts strips as first run, Bloom County and Doonesbury when they were new and subversive, and Calvin and Hobbes when Watterson was re-defining what a “three-panel gag strip” could be. And yes, this thing called Funky Winkerbean, a middle-tier gag-a-day high-school-hijinx strip in the Chicago Tribune. Plus Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Cheech Wizard, etc. I even remember when the Tribune signed underground cartoonist Skip Williamson, promising his cartoons would appear “frequently.” In fact they published exactly one before their staunchly conservative readers put an end to that experiment.

          Damn… I just realized… I’m old.

          2. Bobanero,
            Breathed, Watterson, Opus, Hobbes, and an appearance by the ancient, 30-ish Calvin. (Not to mention our own SpacemanSpiff[85] & Banana Junior 6000!!!) {We gotta get ComicBookHarriet a comic strip icon. You know like an overhead helmet when she plays video games like Defender!}
            This was a post that traveled deep into my heart, and found the last shreds of comic strip joy. I did not think such happiness still existed.
            Like the Frenchmen singing the song *the Marseillaise* in the film “Casablanca” overwhelming the Nazi singers:
            Having read this 17 part epic from Bloom County, I weep for joy!
            Thank you.

          3. I was chuffed when the original Banana Jr. 6000 made an appearance in the Bloom County/Calvin and Hobbes arc. What a clever way to revisit a great old character.

          4. bobanero,

            That is brilliant! And I completely missed it. Thanks for the post!

        2. Be Ware of Eve Hill should run a fund raiser for CBH. Those books ain’t cheap!

          Harry Dinkle: Did somebody say “fundraiser”?!

          be ware of eve hill Eeeeeek! (slaps Dinkle silly) GET OUT OF HERE!

          Dinkle: Yipe! Yipe! Yipe!

      2. If Tom Batiuk is ever remembered for any character, it’ll be Act I Dinkle. I lean toward HL’s interpretation: putting Pete in charge of Montoni’s better fulfills his weird needs. somehow.

        Because Pete is by far the most accomplished writer in the Funkyverse, as Billy The Skink said yesterday. And seems much better suited to being TB’s “give me awards and recognition” stand-in. It was a bizarre move.

    2. The little fella gave me some trouble for the first couple days, but now he’s sucking down his milk like a champ.

  3. Re the dangers of sponsoring a softball team… years ago, a local dental practice that specialized in permanent tooth replacement sponsored a teenage girls’ softball team. So one fine night this rather early-blooming young lass arrives at the church supper wearing a tight t-shirt emblazoned with “KRUZINSKI’S IMPLANTS” (name changed to protect the innocent, and because I don’t remember exactly how it was spelled). Took me a while to realize it was a dental business.

  4. I was wondering last week why Masone was dealing with Dinkle about music for the new Starbuck Jones movie and with Mr. Director Martin Johns nowhere to be seen… Well, I guess the studio let go of Mr. Director and now he’s sending me phishing e-mails.

    1. It’s always amazing when CBH posts these strips from the archives. At one point, Batiuk actually knew how to do this! Sure, the strips aren’t brilliant, but they’re often acceptable-to-reasonably-good, and sometimes even elicit an audible chuckle or two.

      Compare to a half-century later, when it’s extremely difficult to imagine any reader enjoying his current work unironically.

      1. Highly derivative of Peanuts, but basically good. Though Batiuk is hardly the only cartoonist to draw from that particular well.

      2. The mid-80’s, where Batiuk admits he was the least creatively ‘challenged’, is really some of his best stuff. It’s where all the running gags of the different characters intersected in the funniest ways, and it hits that sitcom stride.

        I hope you guys are enjoying Act I material analysis. I finally found enough budget volumes to complete my Act I collection, so I plan on pulling on that quite a bit for future posts.

  6. Today’s Funky Crankerbean:

    Looks like Pete doesn’t know shit about baseball or something I dont know I barely looked at today’s strip

  7. One can only hope the current Crankshaft arc goes in the direction of Gil Thorp‘s memorable 2004 summer rec league softball story arc – complete with an unlovable local greasy spoon that becomes a delinquent jersey sponsor that has to be threatened into paying, the wonderfully named opposing squad of bullies (Trujillo’s Pagoda! What is it? Who cares?! The name is awesome!), and the magnificent emergence of Coach Kaz! What a time to be alive!

    It won’t, it will stink on ice as all Crankshaft arcs do these days… but I still like to hope. Rebellions are built on hope, or something like that, I heard.

  8. Today’s Funky Crankerbean:

    Pete: Ed, Aren’t you dating Mary Marizipan?

    Mindy: Pete, who is Mary Marizpan?

    Ed: Mindy, You’ve met her before.

  9. We have a mildly amusing bit of self depreciation to sweeten The Mopey One’s fear that he’d have give up loving comics if his name is attached to sports anything. Unstabler would have to disagree.

  10. Batty had to shoehorn Montoni’s back into the story. I get he needed a stage in FW, even though it led to the unrealistic coffee counter setup where people go to a pizza shop for coffee and pie.

    But for Crankshaft, a fitting stage would be the venerable coffee and donut shop, a routine staple for old people in NE Ohio. Heck, our local Crankshafts even got featured in our local paper as they help court every morning in the neighborhood shop. One guy even set up a stand outside during home days offering wise advice for just $1.

    But Batty still has to brown nose Luigi’s for some reason.

    1. The whole thing with Montoni’s didn’t make sense. When he first announced that Montoni’s was closing, I naturally assumed that the final day of Montoni’s would happen at the same time as the final strip, and that the Grand Finale would happen then. Instead, Montoni’s got kicked to the curb after a lame auction arc, and the Grand Finale took place at St Spires (followed by the worst epilogue in comics history). Maybe it was his way of making the break from FW and ending with a place that’s more specific to Crankshaft? If that’s the case, why bring back Montoni’s at all? And why give it to Pete and Mindy? So now we have two “power” couples (Pete/Mindy & Max/Hannah) who have left promising careers to be handed the keys (by Mason & TPM) to failing businesses that they are both somehow able to maintain with no hired help. TB just keeps pulling this stuff out of his ass like a magician pulling an endless chain of handkerchiefs out of their pocket.

    2. Batiuk once wrote he met with Chuck Ayers for lunch twice a month at Luigi’s to discuss Funky Winkerbean. I wonder if they still meet despite the strip ending? Would they stop because Batiuk could no longer write off the lunches as a business expense? 😂

      Did Batiuk and Ayers have a “special” booth or table where they always dined like it was featured in Crankshaft with Ed and his pals at the Dale Evans? Is there a plaque on the wall?

  11. Today’s Funky Crankerbean:

    I don’t think that the baseball team mentioned in this arc will be mentioned again after this week

    Related to SOSF: I think CBH should do an overview on the Batiukverse characters who represent each of the Seven Deadly Sins

      1. Relating to the Seven Deadly Sins in the Batiukverse: I’ve already nominated Mooch for Sloth, Harry L. Dinkle for Pride and Chester Hagglemore for Greed

        1. All this talk of the Seven Deadly Sins makes me want to go watch Bedazzled, both the Dudley Moore and Brendan Fraser versions.

    2. I think CBH should do an overview on the Batiukverse characters who represent each of the Seven Deadly Sins

      That’s easy:

      Pride: Les Moore
      Greed: Les Moore
      Wrath: Les Moore
      Envy: Les Moore
      Lust: Les Moore
      Sloth: Les Moore
      Gluttony: everyone except Les Moore and Cindy Summers, though that’s due to bad Mary Sue writing and not due to any virtues on their parts

  12. Bill the Splut,
    Today, you hit comedy gold on GoComics. That bit with the 1995 Super Jerk Table was hilarious. Thank you!

    1. No, thank you! Also, they’ve been “replacing” my condo’s roof, and I haven’t had more than 3 hours sleep in a row for 2 weeks, so I just decided to let the sleep deprivation do the writing.

      Fortunately, I realized that the character 1948 British Tea Trolley really didn’t need a 1933 Tea Trolley character who was there at the Battle of Britain. “Yeah, no sound worse than a bloody Stuka coming in! No better sound is the Stuka slamming into the ground because my cousin, 1940 Spitfire Cup-Holder, shot him down innit?!”

    1. I think I have to revisit Anthony Powell’s *Kindly Ones,* in which, on the eve of World War II, Sir Magnus Donners has a dinner party in which he takes photographs of his guests attired as the seven deadly sins.

      Narrator Nick Jenkins was sloth, if I remember correctly.

      Old radio gag:

      “The longest word in the English language is ‘a word from our sponsor…'”

      This, for what it’s worth, is actually the current longest word in the English language:

      Pneumono­ultra­micro­scopic­silico­volcano­coniosis

      an artificial long word said to mean a lung disease caused by inhaling very fine ash and sand dust.

      I wonder whether it’s fatal, or whether you can contract it at Bronson Canyon (company of Inner Child optional).

      1. Anonymous Sparrow,
        “Pneumono­ultra­micro­scopic­silico­volcano­coniosis

        Proves not to be fatal if the sufferer has enough lung power to pronounce the word.
        When I was a kid in elementary school way back in the ‘60’s, we prided ourselves in knowing …
        “Antidisestablishmentarianism” was our longest word. (We opposed the disestablishment. Which was unusual. We were a Catholic school in Missouri. If I had to guess our support for the word, it would be: if they go after them, they would come after us next. [how little I knew my history!] Ih well.)
        I am able to use the word in a sentence correctly:

        “Pneumono­ultra­micro­scopic­silico­volcano­coniosis is currently the longest word in the dictionary of Anonymous Sparrow.”
        I sit on my laurels! [ouch!] (they were my favorite laurels!)

        1. SP:

          Better that they were laurels and not a petard, which could have “quite exploded” you like Algernon Moncrieff’s invaluable friend Bunbury.

          Phil Ochs would have liked that longest word:

          Well, minin’ is a hazard in Hazard, Kentucky
          And if you ain’t minin’ there
          Well, my friends, you’re awful lucky
          ‘Cause if you don’t get silicosis or pay that’s just atrocious
          You’ll be screamin’ for a union that will care…

  14. I had a busy day yesterday but yesterday’s Crankstrip really reminded me of the usual annoying quirks of these strips. Every panel, every character was smiling as the lead up to the gag happened. Definite Funkyverse Smirks ™ for the final bit of wordplay but even before everyone is wryly happy like they somehow enjoy Ed’s presence regularly.

    Crankshaft was built on an asshole buss driver doing his thing, why the heck are we being made to see everyone happy-doey spending time with him? Even BC in its running-on-fumes state still has the characters groan and silently pray for release when they read a bad pun from Wiley’s Dictionary. Nobody should be enjoying these puns and yet for the last 15 years it’s been constant smirking-at-their-own-jokes.

    1. Constant smirking-at-their-own-jokes while simultaneously making a public declaration that having the characters break the fourth wall and look at the reader after a bad pun is delivered is something that they are “done with” and is beneath them.

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